When I was chairing the TV-Video and Mobile conference in Berlin last week, I met Alexey Chuikin of Admarplus ie Plastic Media of Moscow. He gave a few innovative examples of engagement in totally unexpected areas.
The Moscow Zoo. Like all zoos around the world they had signs at all the cages to the animals saying "please do not feed". Don't feed the monkeys, don't feed the lions, don't feed the tigers, etc. That is so typical of our society, with signs everywhere telling us what we are not allowed to do. No longer. If you visit the Moscow zoo, today you see signs saying "if you want to feed this lion, send an SMS text message to.." and you will be charged a premium text message fee. A nice way to engage with the zoo, to participate in its costs; and the zoo gets to turn a negative command into a positive request. Very clever !
Planting trees. Even more heart-warming was the recent campaign Alexey's company had done for the WWF (World Wildlife Fund). They ran a campaign to plant trees in Russia. The payment was again via premium SMS text messaging, and as a further gimmick, each participant received a picture as a return message, of the kind of tree they had helped plant. A wonderful method for people to participate in conservation projects, even through very small budgets, and of course using the mobile phone. I wish this idea spreads all around the world with all charities (and the above one with the zoos of the world).
Obviously these examples are yet more proof that engagement can work, and thus echo themes in our book Communities Dominate Brands. We will definitely include these two into our next book with Alan. Thank you Alexey for these wonderful ideas !
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